| |
|
|
| |
|
|
NASA's Atomic Fridge Will Make the ISS the Coldest Known Place in the Universe
Later this year, a small part of the International Space Station will become 10 billion times colder than the average temperature of the vacuum of space thanks to the Cold Atom Lab (CAL). Once it's on the space station, this atomic fridge will be the coldest known place in the universe and will allow physicists to 'see' into the quantum realm in a way that would never be possible on Earth.
In a normal room, "atoms are bouncing off one another in all directions at a few hundred meters per second," Rob Thompson, a NASA scientist working on CAL explained in a statement. CAL, however, can reach temperatures that are just one ten billionth of a degree above absolute zero -- the point at which matter loses all its thermal energy -- which means that this chaotic atomic motion comes to a near standstill.
CAL uses magnetic fields and lasers traps to capture the gaseous atoms and cool them to nearly absolute zero. Since all the atoms have the same energy levels at that point, these effectively motionless atoms condense into a state of quantum matter called a Bose-Einstein condensate. This state of matter means that the atoms have the properties of one continuous wave rather discrete particles. |
|
|
|
| |
|
| There are no conversations. |
| |
|
|
|
|
| Elton Gallegly |
In addition, California spends nearly $1 billion a year in Medi-Cal services for an average of 780,000 illegal immigrants a month, over and above emergency health services. |
| Sylvia Earle |
For humans, the Arctic is a harshly inhospitable place, but the conditions there are precisely what polar bears require to survive - and thrive. 'Harsh' to us is 'home' for them. Take away the ice and snow, increase the temperature by even a little, and the realm that makes their lives possible literally melts away. |
| John Cameron |
Medical physicists work in cooperation with doctors. A few medical physicists devote their time to research and teaching. A few get involved with administrative duties. |
| Tecumseh |
When you rise in the morning, give thanks for the light, for your life, for your strength. Give thanks for your food and for the joy of living. If you see no reason to give thanks, the fault lies in yourself. |
| Marc Garneau |
I think the crux of the matter was that if we were going to become partners in, for example, the International Space Station, we had to gain the respect of a country like the United States and particularly its space organization, NASA. |
| Marc Garneau |
After the Shuttle checks out on its two upcoming flights, it will be ready to take larger components up to the International Space Station later this fall. |
| David Eagleman |
I know one lab that studies nicotine receptors and all the scientists are smokers, and another lab that studies impulse control and they're all overweight. |
| Henry Rollins |
I spend several days at a time without enough sleep. At first, normal activities become annoying. When you are too tired to eat, you really need some sleep. A few days later, things become strange. Loud noises become louder and more startling, familiar sounds become unfamiliar, and life reinvents itself as a surrealist dream. |
| Chris Hadfield |
For the last several years and culminating in six months in orbit next year, I've been training for my third space flight. This one is almost in a category completely different than the previous two, specifically to live in on the space station for six months, to command a space ship and to fly a new rocket ship. |
| T. Harv Eker |
The only way to permanently change the temperature in the room is to reset the thermostat. In the same way, the only way to change your level of financial success 'permanently' is to reset your financial thermostat. But it is your choice whether you choose to change. |
|
|
|
|
Experimental Device Generates Electricity From the Coldness of the Universe (phys.org)
An international team of scientists has demonstrated for the first time that it is possible to generate a measurable amount of electricity in a diode directly from the coldness of the universe. The infrared semiconductor device faces the sky and uses the temperature difference between Earth and space to produce the electricity. In contrast to leveraging incoming energy as a normal solar cell would, the negative illumination effect allows electrical energy to be harvested as heat leaves a surface. Today's technology, though, does not capture energy over these negative temperature differences as efficiently. By pointing their device toward space, whose temperature approaches mere degrees from absolute ze...
|
| |
|
|
|
Astronaut Scott Kelly Describes One Year In Space -- And Its After Effects (brisbanetimes.com.au)
53-year-old astronaut Scott Kelly shared a dramatic excerpt from his new book Endurance: A Year in Space, A Lifetime of Discovery in the Brisbane Times, describing his first 48 hours back on earth and what he'd learned on the mission:
I push back from the table and struggle to stand up, feeling like a very old man getting out of a recliner... I make it to my bedroom without incident and close the door behind me. Every part of my body hurts. All my joints and all of my muscles are protesting the crushing pressure of gravity. I'm also nauseated, though I haven't thrown up... When I'm finally ver...
|
| |
|
|
|
Mike Pence and Trump Administration on Space:
Pence said, "Space is, in his words, a war-fighting domain just like land and air and sea." He added, "History proves that peace only comes through strength, and in the realm of outer space, the United States Space Force will be that strength in the years ahead."
|
| |
|
|
|
Researchers Created ‘Quantum Artificial Life’ For the First Time
“Our research brought these amazingly sophisticated events called life to the realm of the atomic and microscopic world …and it worked.”
For the first time, an international team of researchers has used a quantum computer to create artificial life—a simulation of living organisms that scientists can use to understand life at the level of whole populations all the way down to cellular interactions.
...
|
| |
|
|
|
Hackers Stole 600 Gallons of Gas From Detroit Gas Station, Report Says
Police in Detroit are looking for two suspects who allegedly managed to hack a gas pump and steal over 600 gallons of gasoline, valued at about $1,800. From a report:
The theft took place in the middle of the day and went on for about 90 minutes, with the gas station attendant unable to thwart the hackers. The theft, reported by Fox 2 Detroit, took place at around 1pm local time on June 23 at a Marathon gas station located about 15 minutes from downtown Detroit. At least 10 cars are believed to have benefitted from the free-flowing gas pump, which still has police befuddled. Here's what is known about the supposed hack...
|
| |
|
|
|
I have been turning this over in my mind since I first heard of it. Here is how I think this works.
Imaginary numbers are very familiar to the physicist, who uses them constantly in everything. They probably aren't as familiar to non-physicists, who maybe learned them in high school, but then only as some abstract mathematical formality that was kind of neat but didn't really mean anything. So as a graduate student of physics, let me assure you that imaginary numbers aren't just abstract, but have a solid physical meaning, and are crucially important in describing the physical behavior of a number of systems, most importantly quantum mechanics.
...
This post is a comment.
|
| |
|
|
|
Ive had a few dreams where im in a space shuttle / space train and i can clearly watch us coming closer to a planet / passing by one. very interesting
This post is a comment.
|
| |
|
|
|
Astronomers Discover 13 New Fast Radio Bursts From Deep Space (nationalgeographic.com)
Astronomers have detected 13 high-speed bursts of radio waves coming from deep space -- including one that regularly repeats. While the exact sources remain unknown, the new bevy of mysterious blasts does offer fresh clues to where and why such flashes appear across the cosmos. From a report:
Fast radio bursts, as they are known to scientists, are among the universe's most bizarre phenomena. Each burst lasts just thousandths of a second, and they all appear to be coming from far outside our home galaxy, the Milky Way. Since these bursts were discovered in 2007, their cause has remained a puzzle. Based o...
|
| |
|
|
|
In an experiment published today in Nature, IBM researchers have managed to read and write data to a single atom. A previous atomic storage technique, as mentioned by TechCrunch, doesn't actually store data in the atom, but moves them around to form readable patterns. "This means that imbuing individual atoms with a 0 or 1 is the next major step forward and the next major barrier in storing data digitally, both increasing capacity by orders of magnitude and presenting a brand new challenge to engineers and physicists," reports TechCrunch. From the report:
It works like this: A single Holmium atom (a large one with many unpaired electrons) is set on a bed of magnesium oxide. In this configuration, the atom has what's called magnetic bistability: It has two stable magnetic states with different spins (just go with it). The researchers use a scanning tunneling microscope (also invented at ...
|
| |
|
|
|
|
I had a dream that Charlsey and I were on the moon and we were packing the space ship so we could go home and the moon looked just like Ben's house and there was plenty of oxygen. We were carrying very large equipment because of the low gravity and our space ship looked like a giant sphere with wrapping staircases around it. We were getting inside and I began to worry about reentering the Earth's orbit.
|
| |